Subject: RE: NOTICE OF PARTICULARS Very urgent questions to be answered by Matthew Elderfield.

Subject: RE: NOTICE OF PARTICULARS            Very urgent questions to be answered by Matthew Elderfield.

Dear Ms Gilheany

I refer to your email of 4 September to Patrick Honohan and Matthew Elderfield which has been passed to me for attention.

As previously advised the High Court appointed the provisional administrators on 30th March 2010 on the petition of the Central Bank. This petition, including supporting evidence, was made in open court. The appointment of the joint administrators was confirmed by the High Court in April 2010 after the board of QIL withdrew its objection to the appointment.  This hearing was also held in open court.

You state in your email your understanding that there is conflict between Liberty Mutual and the administrators and ask how do the administrators now account for this conflict.  The Central Bank is not in a position to answer questions on behalf of the administrators.  Accordingly, we would suggest that this question should be but to them.

As previously explained meeting applicants for authorisation is part of the standard authorisation process.  It would not be unusual for meetings to be held with applicants in advance of any formal application being received.  Indeed, in many instances a potential applicant might decide for any number of reasons not to proceed with a formal application despite having already met and discussed an application with the Central Bank.

We would re-iterate that the Central Bank had no role in the sale process of Quinn Insurance Limited (under administration)(“QIL”). It was the role of the administrators to oversee the sale process and they in turn reported to the High Court on all matters pertaining to same.  Accordingly any queries with regard to the sales process (including bidders) should be put to the administrators.

Yours sincerely


Mairéad Davis
Public Contacts Unit
Central Bank of Ireland
Dame Street
Dublin 2.